Description

Soundy Background Music allows any page or post to play a background music while it is displayed.

Having a home page or any other page playing a background music greatly improves your website visitor’s experience. By choosing a music in adequacy with your content, Soundy will help making your visitors immersed in your pages. Pages with a slideshow are excellent candidates for Soundy. But a lot of other page types too.

A Play/Pause button can be displayed anywhere in the pages and posts. Do you need a Play/Pause button that perfectly fits your website design ? Consider Soundy Background Music PRO.

Each page or post can have its own soundtrack. The soundtrack is embedded in the page by means of the HTML 5 audio tag. This way, the plugin is compatible with all modern user devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops of all vendors).

A background music can be associated with all pages and posts or with individual pages or posts.

Defaults can be set by the administrator in the settings page of the plugin. Specific post and page plugin settings can be configured by the authors in the Edit Page and Edit Post pages. In the plugin settings page, an audio track can be set per default.

The audio track can be anywhere on the web as it is specified with its URL. It can also be uploaded in the media library of the WP site.

A play and pause button image can be uploaded by the administrator to replace the default one and can be positioned anywhere. The Play/Pause button can be positioned in any of the four corners of the HTML document or in any of the four corners of the browser window. It can also be positioned with a template tag typically in the document header or with a shortcode in the content.

Soundy Free Version Features

A soundtrack can be specified by the site administrator per default for all pages and posts.

The default soundtrack can be overriden by page and post authors with a custom one for any page or post.

Default Play/Pause button images can be overriden by the site administrator. He can upload these images or just specify their URLs.

Full Control for the site administrator over Play/Pause button positioning.

Play/Pause Button Preview in the context of any page or post.

Play/Pause Button size and positioning can be made responsive in the Play/Pause Responsiveness tab of the plugin settings page.

Audio Volume Control for site administrator as well as page/post authors.

In Magali Bourquin’s Soundy Background Music implementation, the background sound is enabled for all pages but only the homepage has the Autoplay option set. As for the Play/Pause button, custom images have been uploaded to replace the default ones and the button is statically positioned with a call to the soundy_button() function from the header.php file.

Docs & Support

You can find Tutorial, FAQ, Examples and more detailed information about Soundy plugin on WebArtisan.ch. If you were unable to find the answer to your question on the FAQ or in any of the documentation, you should check Soundy’s Support Forum on WordPress.org. If you can’t locate any topics that pertain to your particular issue, post a new topic for it.

Installation

Installation

In the Admin area (the back-end) of your WordPress Web Site, go to Plugins > Add New.

Enter Soundy in the search field.

Soundy Background Music appears.

Click on « Install Now ».

Click on « Activate Plugin ».

To let a page or post play a soundtrack:

Go into the Edit Page or Edit Post tool of this page in the Admin area.

Set the option Enable Background Sound to Yes in the Soundy meta box and update the page.

The page will then play the default soundtrack when displayed.

To set up plugin defaults, go to Settings > Soundy in the admin area and fill out the input fields.

Happy Soundy Music !

Mises à jour

After an update of Soundy you must clear the cache of your browser for the Settings > Soundy page, the Edit Post and Edit Page pages as well as all front pages using the plugin. This is because cached Javascript and CSS files are modified at each Soundy update.

FAQ

Installation Instructions

Installation

In the Admin area (the back-end) of your WordPress Web Site, go to Plugins > Add New.

Enter Soundy in the search field.

Soundy Background Music appears.

Click on « Install Now ».

Click on « Activate Plugin ».

To let a page or post play a soundtrack:

Go into the Edit Page or Edit Post tool of this page in the Admin area.

Set the option Enable Background Sound to Yes in the Soundy meta box and update the page.

The page will then play the default soundtrack when displayed.

To set up plugin defaults, go to Settings > Soundy in the admin area and fill out the input fields.

Mises à jour

After an update of Soundy you must clear the cache of your browser for the Settings > Soundy page, the Edit Post and Edit Page pages as well as all front pages using the plugin. This is because cached Javascript and CSS files are modified at each Soundy update.

General Questions

Why is Soundy Background Music a Must on my WordPress Website ?
Having a home page or any other page playing a background music greatly improves your website visitor’s experience. By choosing a music in adequacy with your content, Soundy will help making your visitors immersed in your pages. Pages with a slideshow are excellent candidates for Soundy. But a lot of other page types too.

Is it possible to have different soundtracks for different posts and pages ?
Yes, a soundtrack can be set up by authors on a per post or per page basis.

Can a page or post play more than one soundtrack ?
Not with Soundy Background Music’s plugin. However this functionality is available with Soundy Audio Playlist Plugin.

What kind of audio files can be used with Soundy Plugin ?
The audio files must be in the MP3, OGG or WAV format. The file extension must be .mp3, .mpg, .mpeg, .ogg .wav or .wave.

Is Soundy Plugin compatible with iphone, ipad and smartphones in general ?
Yes it is, as the plugin uses the HTML5 audio tag. There is just one issue with ipod, iphone and ipad (IOS Operating System): Autoplay option is deactivated by Apple on this operating system.

Is it possible to position the Play/Pause button anywhere in the page or post header ?
Yes, this can be done with the soundy_button() template tag.

Is it possible to position the Play/Pause button anywhere in the content of a page or post ?
Yes, this can be done with the [soundy button] shortcode.

Is it possible to modify the Play/Pause button look & feel ?
Yes, you can upload and set up your own button images.

Can I really put my audio files anywhere on the web ?
Yes, you can put your audio files anywhere on any cloud or website, except one place: you should not put your audio files in the soundy-background-music plugin directory (or below). If you do, you will loose your files the next time you will install a new version of Soundy. The update process deletes this folder and replaces it with a new one. If you want to store the audio files on your WordPress site, the best place to do so is the media library (/wp-content/uploads/…).

Does Soundy allow having a continuous uninterrupted audio stream playing while navigating on my site ?
Because most of the WP themes create and download a new HTML document in your browser each time you navigate to another WP post or page, the answer is NO for such themes.
However there could be themes which don’t download a new HTML document when you switch to another WP post or page. They would rather use Ajax to download the WP post/page in the content area of the downloaded unique main site HTML document.
If such themes exist, then, YES, by using such a theme you could have a continuous uninterrupted audio stream playing while navigating on your site.
A Soundy’s user is using the Premium Crea WP theme on his site: https://www.hanstylewedding.com/
While navigating in the bottom menu of this site, the audio stream is not interrupted and remain continuous as the theme doesn’t download any new HTML document while navigating in this menu.
Having a continuous uninterrupted audio stream playing while navigating on a WP site with Soundy plugin might be possible with some themes but on most themes, it is impossible.
Here, at WebArtisan.ch, we are considering developing a theme which will allow this valuable feature. This will be the Soundy Theme.
If you know of other themes like the Crea WP theme which don’t download new HTML documents while navigating on the site, please, let us know !

Support Questions

How should I proceed to enable Soundy Background Music only for a few pages or posts ?
Go into Soundy’s settings page (Settings > Soundy) and uncheck the checkbox “Enable Background Sound”. It actually is unchecked per default. This way Soundy won’t be enabled per default on your site. Then for each page or post in which you want to enable Soundy, go into the Edit Page admin tool and set the “Enable Background Sound” option to “Yes” by checking the corresponding radio button.

After an update of Soundy, my soundtracks are not played anymore and my custom Play/Pause button images are broken. What happened ?
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the reason might be that you had uploaded your audio files and button images under the soundy-background-music plugin directory. This directory is erased and replaced at each update. Do not add any file in it. Again, the prefered location for such files is the WordPress media library.

I’ve changed the default soundtrack in the Soundy administration (Settings > Soundy) with a new sountrack but a page carries on playing the old soundtrack. What’s happening ?
While the old soundtrack was active an author did change the Soundtrack option to Custom in the Edit Page Soundy meta box.
To correct the problem, reset the Soundtrack option of the Soundy meta box back to Default and update the page.
In Custom mode a page retains the soundtrack defined when the Custom option was selected. In Default mode, the page uses the default soundtrack currently defined in the Soundy settings.

Is it advised to put my audio files on a separate storage cloud ?
Yes it is, especially if you have a lot of traffic on your website. Putting your audio files on a separate storage cloud will release the load on your website and improve page load response time in your visitor’s browsers. There is a lot of Cloud Storage Providers out there. Here is a list of such providers: Audio Hostings – free audio hosting sites. Your hosting provider might also offer cloud storage.

On WP front-end, Soundy’s Play/Pause button does not respond correctly. What’s the problem ?
Soundy needs jQuery 1.10.2 which is the default jQuery library of the last versions of WordPress. However some themes load their own jQuery library. If this library is not up-to-date, Soundy’s Play/Pause button gets into troubles.
Using WordPress Default jQuery library is actually what Soundy does and this is what your theme also should do instead of loading its own old jQuery version. In Soundy Version 2.0 and later, you can now set the variable $use_own_jquery_lib_on_front_end to true in the main Soundy PHP file: soundy.php. To make this modification, go to the plugins page, click on the Edit link of the Soundy plugin, look for the variable and set it to true. This should fix the problem.

I get a PHP parser error. What’s the problem ?
The error message starts with: « Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_FUNCTION ».
This happens when the PHP parser version is too old. Soundy needs PHP 5.3 or higher (PHP 5.3.0 has been released in June 2009).

Tutorial

After plugin installation, go to Settings > Soundy page.

In this page, you have four tabs:

Audio Track
In this tab, a default soundtrack can be set for all pages and posts. All the values are default values which can be overriden by the authors of individual pages and posts. The audio file must be in the MP3, OGG or WAV format. The file extension must be .mp3, .mpg, .mpeg, .ogg, .wav or .wave.
To select a soundtrack from the media library, click on the Media Library button. In the opened dialog box, choose the Media Library tab. If you have more than one soundtrack in the library, you will see "Show" hyperlinks. Click on one. At the bottom of the "Show" display, click on the "Insert into Post" button. The URL and the title of the song are then inserted in the corresponding fields of the Audio Track tab.

Play/Pause Button
In this tab, four images can be uploaded as Play and Pause buttons. The four default buttons are available in four sizes: 24x24px, 32x32px, 48x48px and 64x64px. To choose a size, just click on a button marked 48x48 or 24x24 or 32x32 or 64x64 at the bottom of the tab.

Play/Pause Corner Position
In this tab, the Play/Pause button can be positioned in one of the four corners of a page or its window. If "Window" is specified instead of "Document", the button will have a fixed position and will not scroll with the page or post.

Play/Pause Static Position
This tab explains how to position the Play/Pause button in the site header or in the page/post content.

When editing a page or post, a meta box called "Soundy Background Music" appears below the text editor. This meta box can be activated or deactivated in the screen options of the edit page.

The meta box allows to override the default plugin settings for this page or post. Before all a soundtrack can be set for this page or post. The title appears on the front end when the user hovers over the Play/Pause button.

To select a soundtrack from the media library, click on the Media Library button. In the opened dialog box, choose the Media Library tab. If you have more than one soundtrack in the library, you will see "Show" hyperlinks. Click on one. At the bottom of the "Show" display, click on the "Insert into Post" button. The URL and the title of the song are then inserted in the corresponding fields of the Soundy Background meta box.

For any field, if you choose Default, the corresponding value defined in the Soundy settings will be taken. If a default setting value is changed and Default is selected for this value in the meta box, the page or post will use the new value and the field will reflect default changes and remain up-to-date.

If you choose Custom, the field won't be affected anymore by default setting changes.

Soundy Implementation Examples

Swiss Pianist, Magali Bourquin's Website: www.magalibourquin.com
In Magali Bourquin's Soundy implementation, the background sound is enabled for all pages but only the homepage has the Autoplay option set. As for the Play/Pause button, custom images have been uploaded to replace the default ones and the button is statically positioned with a call to the soundy_button() function from the header.php file.

Support

License

This program is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2, as
published by the Free Software Foundation.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

Donate

If you are happy with the Soundy plugin and you want to help us in further developments, we thank you in advance for a little donation of yours.

Click on the donate button below. A new window will open. Enter your donation amount and follow the instructions.